Lecture Notes

by Justine Elyot

  “I will not tolerate being spoken to like that,” he says, and in a second of pure fury, I fling the butt plug at the webcam with all my strength, and the glass lens cracks, and it falls off the top of the screen.

  My hand flies to my mouth, suppressing the hysterical giggle that has risen to the surface. I have just thrown a butt plug in Sinclair’s face. Do you think I’ll be in much trouble?

  My shaking hands shut down the computer, then I grab my mobile and switch it off. I really can’t talk to him right now. I need time. Time to think. Time to really think.

  *

  Grainy, scratchy eyes squint at the TV screen, which is showing Jeremy Kyle with the volume off. 5:13, says my clock.

  What should I do?

  One unanswerable question, blocking my head, seeping out to poison my bloodstream, tattooing along with my heartbeat. What should I do, what should I do, what should I do, a train of thought speeding down an unending track.

  I love Sinclair but he cannot keep pushing me like this. It is as if he has me constantly against the ropes, testing them for tensile strength, but if he does not want to test me to destruction, he will have to step back, let me up, listen to me. But will he listen to me? Or will he deliver a sucker punch and throw me out of the ring? Losing him would be close to unbearable, but if the alternative is losing myself…oh, I don’t know. Can’t think. Need to sleep.

  I stare at two ill-looking teenagers squaring up to each other while Kyle attempts to smarm them back down. I love Sinclair. But now it looks as if I love myself as well. When did that happen?

  *

  An emergency summit is required, I decide as the dawn of Good Friday breaks over my sleepy seaside town.

  I leave the computer and the mobile off and praise the Lord that I did not give Sinclair my parents’ landline number. I am incommunicado. I am having a day off being submissive and sexual; a BDSM Bank Holiday.

  Later on, I call Caitlin and tell her, “I demand to have some booze!”

  She laughs and declaims, “We want the finest wines available to humanity, we want them here and we want them now!”

  “Damn right. Are you up for a few down at the Arms later? It’s Good Friday and I feel a confessional coming on.”

  “Oooh, really? Is sex involved?”

  “Sex is always involved, Caitlin, as you well know,” I say darkly.

  “Meet you there in an hour then,” she says.

  *

  We are almost blinded by the dazzling force of the April sun as we take our seats in the beachfront beer garden. It is not exactly warm, but we succumb to the British eccentricity of behaving as if it is high summer as soon as there is a glimmer of brightness between the clouds. I bet you any money Dad is cleaning the barbecue back at home.

  Lack of sleep and Sinclair-related anxiety render me jittery and parched, and I welcome the sight of the two Bacardi Breezers on the table, letting its deceptively unalcoholic-tasting juices glide down my throat. Wonder what he’s doing now. His conference ended yesterday. I suppose he’s going to France; I imagine him at the airport, looking fiercely sexy in an Italian suit, trying me on his mobile for the eighty millionth time. I slip my hand in my pocket and stroke my phone. Do I dare? What would happen if I switched it on? No. I’m not going to. Not until tomorrow.

  “So then. Confession time, young lady,” says Caitlin mock-portentously.

  “Bless me, sister, for I have sinned,” I say, drifting absently into visions of Sinclair in a dog collar for some reason. Hot? Or not? Hmmm, can’t decide. Perhaps he’d like me to wear a collar. Oh yes, that’s definitely hot…

  “How have you sinned, my child?” asks Caitlin impatiently.

  “Sorry. My head’s all over the place today. I’ve had a row with Sinclair.”

  “Oh shit. A bad one?”

  “I don’t know really.” I giggle slightly, thinking I can’t really come straight out with, “Is throwing a butt plug at your lover’s virtual face bad?” I drum my fingertips on the table. “There’s some things I haven’t told you about Sinclair.”

  “Well, yeah. You’ve hardly told me anything. I figured perhaps he’s married?”

  “Oh God, no, he isn’t married. But he is…quite a lot older than me.”

  “How much older?”

  I screw my face up as if cushioning the impact of my next words. “About twenty years.” Give or take. What’s a couple of years between power-exchangers?

  “What? Really! Wow! But you said he was on your course?”

  “Uh, well, he’s kind of like the Head of Faculty.”

  “No! No way!”

  “No word of a lie, guv’nor,” I say in a mockney accent, terribly uncomfortable about revealing these facts. “But that’s not the problem. The problem is…there’s kind of a weird dynamic to our relationship. It’s not your…usual type of thing.” Fuck, how am I going to say this? Will she overreact or will she be cool with it? I mean, she’s the one that fancies biker boys and got a tattoo when she was underage. She should be open-minded, no?

  “Well, he’s a teacher and you’re a student. That’s going to skew the vibe right from the start.”

  “Yes,” I agree eagerly, thinking surely she will cotton on if she’s going down this avenue. “It’s a big influence on the way we, ah, interact.”

  “Is it?” She smiles slowly. “Does he grade you in the bedroom?” No, but he de-grades me, boom boom.

  “He does expect certain standards of behaviour,” I say slyly, feeling a flush of lust for him creep uninvited into my groin.

  Caitlin’s eyes widen. “And are there…penalties…if you don’t live up to his standards?” Now you’re getting warmer.

  “Uh huh,” I confirm.

  “Over the desk?” she exclaims, fascinated and a little aghast.

  “Sometimes.” I hide my face, giggling manically. I neck down half the Breezer in my embarrassment.

  “Beth!” Her mouth is…maybe not an O, more a nought. “You mean the old pervert likes to bend you over and give you six of the best?”

  “He’s no more an old pervert than I am!” I defend him. “Except I’m not old.”

  “Seriously? You like that kind of thing?”

  “From him I do. I’m not saying I’d take it from just anybody.”

  “Wow. Just….wow. Oh my God. And you’ve had a row? Are you afraid he’s going to hurt you? Beth, would he really hurt you?”

  Caitlin looks genuinely worried. Stop. Think. Would he?

  “No, no, I…don’t think so.”

  “What did you row about?”

  “It’s…a bit personal. I don’t think I can say it.”

  “Oh, right. Was it really serious?”

  “I’m not sure. I was quite disrespectful. And he’s very big on respect.” I grimace, quailing inwardly at the thought of his reaction to last night’s little performance.

  “So…what’s the worst that could happen?” asks Caitlin, agog.

  I know what the worst is. He could leave me. But I don’t want to think about that now.

  *

  Of course, once two more Bacardi Breezers have breezed down my gullet, detail more colourful than I would ever have divulged in a sober state passes my lips. The lecture notes that started it all…the running machine…cutting my own switches on the Downs…and the butt plug incident all spill out in a fruity punch that puts the Breezer to shame. Why is daytime drinking so much headier than the evening version?

  Caitlin clinks her bottle against mine, “Here’s to sexy sadists,” she says. “Preferably without anger issues though, eh? Another?”

  “We ought to eat something,” I say cautiously. “Let’s go to the chippy. Give us a sec; I’m just going to the loo.”

  Inside the cubicle, I yield to curious temptation and switch on my phone for a few seconds. Thirty eight missed calls. That’s it; I don’t want to see any more. I switch it off again, suddenly tearful. I love him so much. I don’t want to lose him.

  Then the need for f
ish and chips overrides all other considerations and I join Caitlin on the cobbles outside.

  *

  We need another drink to wash down the vinegar-tinctured grease, so we head back to the pub. It isn’t until we are right at the bar that I notice who is standing next to me. Adam Ellwood.

  Caitlin jostles me painfully in the ribs, but I am too busy staring. He is no less gorgeous than I remember, though now he seems a bit young for my tastes. All the same….a lump rises to my throat. He looks around casually, then double takes and frowns.

  “Can’t be Beth Newland, can it?”

  “Can,” I say with a beaming grin. “You remember me?”

  “I remember you doing all the choir solos in assembly. You have a terrific voice.”

  I can’t believe this. Adam Ellwood, who was so far above me that he blocked out the sun, is…possibly….flirting with me.

  “Thanks. Er. So how are you these days?”

  “Good, pretty good. Listen, what are you girls drinking? Do you mind if I join you for a minute?”

  “No, but…aren’t you here with anyone?”

  “Just some mates. Let’s grab a table and catch up. School seems a lifetime ago now, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh, at least a lifetime,” I say, twirling a strand of hair. I am a femme fatale! They cannot resist me!

  Back outside in the beer garden, Adam offers us cigarettes. What the hell? I take one and suck it in greedily, bathing in the toxic lusciousness of the smoke. I have sorely missed smoking.

  My erstwhile crushee regales us with stories of his brilliant university successes and whatnot while Caitlin and I loll against each other laughing at inappropriate junctures. Ellwood does not seem particularly put off by our fairly obvious inebriety though, and rattles on regardless.

  “It’s nearly three o’clock,” Caitlin says to me, as he fishes his fag packet back out for another offering. “We should be in church.”

  “Oh yes,” I say. “We should be. Ah well.” I take another cigarette and spark up.

  “Don’t go to church,” wheedles Adam. “Come for a walk on the beach with me, Beth.”

  Aha! The old ‘walk on the beach’ line; age old courtship ritual of our town.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” I say. “I should probably go home.”

  “Don’t go home. C’mon. You come too, Caitlin. Just a little walk, then you can go home.”

  His cajolery wins the day and we trip down the wooden steps that lead to the shingle beach. It has clouded over somewhat and a wind is whipping up, blowing my scarf up around my face and my hair out behind me. We crunch down a few yards, then Caitlin moans that her shoe is full of stones and hops back up to the pub. My cigarette has gone out, so Adam offers me another, but it is hard to light in this wind. He crouches right down over me, cupping the cigarette between his hands as I hold it in my lips and trying his best to apply the lighter. On the third attempt, his forehead touches mine and I think…though I’m not sure…he might have kissed the side of my eye. The cigarette lights and he crows with triumph but does not move away. I have to step back to elude his hopeful clutches.

  I look back to the promontory on which the pub garden is situated, deciding to rejoin Caitlin up there before Ellwood gets serious.

  But it’s already serious. It’s as serious as it gets. Standing up there like the figurehead on the prow of a ship, staring down at us while the wind ruffles his hair magnificently, is Sinclair.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Whassup?” asks Adam, bemused by my suddenly frozen demeanour.

  “Fuck! Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.” I drop the cigarette on to the stones and try to force my body to respond to me, but it is far too caught up in its fight-or-flight dilemma to pay any heed. My hammering, shaking, cross-eyed self notes that Sinclair is negotiating the wooden steps on his way down to the beach, quite unhurriedly, his face impassive. My feet, never of a particularly athletic disposition, have suddenly discovered the urge to run like hell. I hop up and down on the shingle, looking this way and that, processing escape routes at compulsive speed.

  “Beth…WHAT’S UP?” repeats Adam, grabbing my elbow and shaking it.

  “Go away! Get away from here! LEAVE ME ALONE!” I scream at his stunned face, and uncertainly he backs off, passing Sinclair with a curious look on his way to the pub.

  Despite my body’s best efforts, I stand my ground in the face of Approaching Menace, refusing to look cowed or frightened. Even though I am.

  “Hello,” I falter once he is within earshot. “I thought you were in France.”

  He says nothing, holding out his arm in what seems like a ghastly parody of a chivalrous gesture. I dither for a second then take it, feeling as if I have just sealed my fate; a character in a folk tale who meets the devil at a crossroads or whatever. “We need to talk,” he says, escorting me up the beach until we find ourselves in the shadow of some large rocks and we sit down, leaning against them and staring out at the roughening sea.

  “Do you have anything to say to me, Beth?”

  “Listen, about last night,” I open, trying my hardest not to blurt and quaver. “I’m sorry. Well, I’m sorry-ish. I’m sorry I lost my temper. But I’m not sorry I disobeyed you. I’m not sorry about that. I’m not going to be either.”

  His eyes level with mine and I try to work out where on the scale of wrath he might be. He doesn’t look to be in a towering fury, but then, this is the man who invented self-control.

  “If you defy me, Beth, I can’t just let that go. There have to be consequences.”

  “Why? You’re pushing me too far too fast, Sinclair. When we first got together you said that this relationship would require maturity and sensitivity on your part, but it isn’t very sensitive of you to force me to do something I’m uncomfortable with. You said we wouldn’t do anything I didn’t want, but you lied! It’s you at fault here, not me. I won’t be punished for this. I just won’t!”

  Sinclair looks utterly thrown by this. I have veered way off the script and he has forgotten his line.

  I fill the space, continuing: “I’m not saying I never want to do…what you were asking of me…but…I need you to care for me more. I need you to…consider my feelings.”

  “I consider your feelings every minute of the day,” snarls Sinclair suddenly, and I am shocked by the hostility of his tone. “All I ever do is consider your feelings. I give you what you want, I show you what you need, I drag you out of the pit of failure you inhabited before I took you on, I give you myself. I wonder how much consideration you would give to my needs if I didn’t make you?”

  “Of course I would! I love you. I’ve told you I love you.”

  “You don’t understand love, you stupid little girl. I want to give you everything.”

  “Except yourself! You never give me anything of yourself; just this…performance version. Sinclair the sadistic intellectual, that’s all I get. I want more. I want to know who the hell you are. Whoever it is, I’d love you.”

  “You’re the one talking about taking things too far too fast, Beth, but perhaps it hasn’t occurred to you that I need to trust a person before I’ll give myself, and trust takes longer than five minutes to earn.”

  “You can trust me!”

  “Oh, clearly.” A hateful sneering tone has entered his voice. “Of course I can trust the girl I just found canoodling on the beach with some ne’er-do-well. I hope he’s using a condom, Beth; don’t want any accidents do we?”

  I open my mouth to defend myself, but find I have to inhale sharply when he takes my missing pills from his breast pocket and flings them down on the pebbles between us.

  “You…you bastard!” I whisper, standing up shakily. “You really believe that of me? You really think…”

  As I step away, he grabs me by the wrist, pulling me close with the strength I had forgotten he possesses.

  “I think I’ve made a mistake,” he hisses, every consonant sharp as a blade. “I wanted to give you everything.”

>   “But only as you would a pet. Or a child. I don’t want to be either of those.”

  He pushes me back on to the stones, releasing me so that I fall heavily, bruising my bottom.

  “Just like the others, you wanted what you could get from me. You’ve taken it, and now you don’t need it any more. Well, I wish you every success, but I don’t think there’s anything more to be said.”

  He gets up and stalks off.

  “Don’t go!” I scream after him, scrambling to my feet, but his long legs carry him swiftly away, and by the time I have reached the beer garden – where Adam and Caitlin are snogging frantically up against the wall – he is gone.

  *

  I’ve learned a lot from Sinclair, I really have. One of the things I’ve learned is that there are so many types of pain in the world, such gradations and variations. There is pain you embrace, pain you accept and pain you can’t bear. There is pain you agree to, pain you control and pain that controls you. It can be internal or external, physical or mental, playful or harmful. And perhaps life is about finding your threshold.

  It is Saturday morning, eight days later, and Emily is meeting me at the station. We are both back a week early for opera rehearsals ahead of next week’s performances and I will be sleeping on her floor until more permanent arrangements can be made.

  Not that Sinclair has evicted me. The one communication I have had from him was an email, short and to the point: “Dear Beth, You may store your belongings in my spare room on the understanding that you are actively seeking alternative accommodation. You may find it suits both of us better if you arrange to sleep at a friend’s house in the meantime. E.L.S.”

  It probably sounds harsh and heartless that he has sent me only this, but on the other hand, I have not sent him anything either.

  Obviously I have tried. I have done little else over the past week but sit on the beach listening to Fauré’s Requiem on my iPod, trying to pour my feelings out on to paper, yet none of my incontinent blurting has reached him.